


Thorns Dance in the Light

by Carradee



Series: Servants of Flame and Gloom [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Republic (Comics), Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Dark, Deep Cover, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Implied Consent, Lies, Manipulation, Mental Health Issues, Mind Games, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Past Sexual Assault, Psychological Trauma, spy!Jedi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 03:24:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17174924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carradee/pseuds/Carradee
Summary: She’s just a gutter rat, someone to be shot and left in the ditch when the deal is done. Surely she’s worth no more than that.Surely.(Parallel story to "Shadows Flicker in the Night")Warning:The on-page relationship contains dubious albeit implied consent.





	1. Chapter 1

Khaleen’s in prison when Dooku finds her. It’s not even for something she did—the crew ran the heist without her, against her advice, then flung her at Judicial when they needed someone to take the fall.

She’s not angry, really. What else did she expect? She’s just a gutter rat, and she had more worth to them as a scapegoat than for the expertise they wouldn’t even heed.

Prison sucks, but it’s a low-security one. The beds and food aren’t really _bad_ , and she’s popular. The three guards who tear her up only mind her block one weekend per month. For now. She can get out on good behavior in a year (benefits of the judge considering her childhood sob story), so she might even be free before they think to change their schedule.

Or so she thinks before a nobleman shows interest in her talents—how he found her name, she’s afraid to find out—and she’s faced with helping him ensare a hypocritical Jedi or…

Well, she knows that look in the eyes of the count’s so-called associate. Death lurks there, and not a pleasant one.

It’s not a choice, but she pretends it is. Gutter rats always do.

* * *

Getting the mark’s attention nearly gets her gang raped, but he rescues her before she’s hurt too badly, incapacitating the five mercs without even drawing a weapon. It still came close, and now she’s at risk from whatever the Jedi plans to do with her, and both factors help her act as afraid as she should as she fixes her shorts.

Then he holds out a hand, wordlessly _offering_ to help her up.

Khaleen peers into his eyes, flicks hair out of her face so she can get a better view. He’s not demanding or otherwise deciding for her, which she expected from what she’d been told about him. She takes his help, watching for the catch. “Um, thanks?”

“Need bacta?” The question sounds sincere, and the slight shift in his position indicates _suppression_ of arousal.

Dangerous.

He speaks subtly with his body, telling her to leave the alley with him, and she answers in kind.

Fire flares in his eyes.

“Thanks for the save,” she says uneasily, playing to her role and protecting herself from getting taken in that alley. “Um. Can I go now?”

He rocks back before he steps forward, pressing into her space. “Why’d they grab you?”

“I don’t know!” As if a Jedi able to hide criminal behavior from his brethren would be stupid enough to believe that. “I… I’m a thief, okay? I must’ve picked the wrong mark. I don’t think they’ll hit me again. You can go.”

He grabs her arm, pulls her up and out of the alley. “I don’t think so. You owe me.”

She flinches, all too aware of what men like him mean by that, and she works to keep up with his stride. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

Silence stretches without him specifying his fee. He isn’t really going to make her offer, is he?

Guess so. “So, you want it here on the street or in a motel? I mean, _five_ guys…” Fergutz, this is going to hurt. “I guess that means you paid for five…”

She curses herself for her childishness, but her voice breaks. That’s _asking_ to be hurt.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he answers, so casually that her throat tightens. “Five of their caliber… Only worth one proessional pick, don’t you think?”

Her muscles lock up from the shock that the selfish asshole would _downgrade_ what she owes him. He keeps dragging her but glances down, and promptly hauls her out of the flow of passersby before she hurts herself.

_What the kriff?_

“ _Are_ you a professional?” he asks directly.

A professional _what_ , he leaves unspoken, and she answers with a nod. He’s even more dangerous than she’d thought, she realizes, as he straightens her sleeve. He’s outright _clever_ , skilled at playing even normal people. Where would a Jedi even learn that?

“I need copies of some files from the shipyards. Sound like something you can do?”

“And if it isn’t, you’ll…what?” she pushes. “Take your payment against this wall?”

“Maybe,” he answers without blinking, as if his previous consideration had been her imagination.

The gaslighting makes her stomach churn. Fergutz, what kind of man is she _dealing_ with?

It’ll be better to push the sex, to get that over with and find out, but…she can’t make herself do it. “You gotta address on the files?”

He gestures with his chin for her to come with, and she obeys…all the way to a motel.

 _Fripping him is part of the job,_ she reminds herself. Despite the proof she’s seen that he’s a selfish bastard, nothing indicated was the type to inflict lasting harm—but then, Dooku might well have edited that out of the dossier.

The mark tosses her a bacta patch even before he finishes clearing the room of bugs. She eyes it warily, waits for him to finish before asking, “What’s the cost?”

“Consider it the down payment.”

 _What?_ “And what do you call what you did to those goons?”

“Insurance.”

“Oh,” she answers, hunching up, but his threat feels like a _warning_ , somehow, as if he’s saying it because he has to and not because he wants to. She’s missing something.

Missing something about a mark is dangerous.

He doesn’t even look at her as he tells her to take the fresher while he collects the information for her.

Using the bacta patch he gave her is _probably_ safe, or at least safe enough. (Even if he _does_ leverage it to claim she owes him more than this pick, that’s a good thing.)

She can’t admit to knowing who he is, though, and she can’t keep thinking of him as ‘the mark’. “You gotta name?”

The silence that answers her doesn’t _feel_ dangerous. She sidles a bit closer to the fresher, as if his answer doesn’t matter to her. “I’m Khaleen.”

“Korto,” he responds, finally.

The relief at knowing—Dooku’s intel hadn’t included that cover name—helps her smirk. “Okay, _Korto_.” The potential tease about the cover name doesn’t make him so much as tense. Someone that secure in the game won’t hurt her anywhere he can get caught at it. Relief helps her treat him as just another john. “Get me what I need, and I’ll have what _you_ need, before you know it.”

She sashays into the fresher, and his refusal to follow her just confuses her all over again. Maybe he prefers guys?

But no, he was turned on in that alley. Voyeurism, then? But that didn’t fit how he’s gotten away with his predilections without his precious Order finding out.

She does clean up and apply the patch to her hurt leg, making sure it doesn’t show outside her clothing. Visible injuries just bring out the worst in johns.

_So why hasn’t he acted yet?_

She keeps her joints loose as she re-enters the room, lying with her body to say she’s not worried. He hands her a flimsy, as if they’re truly professionals on a pick, and she treats it as a cue.

Until she can figure out what the kriff is up with him, playing along is _all_ she can do.

* * *

She doesn’t have to force their continued acquaintance, since local security comes too close to catching them in the drop-off. (Since her mark’s a _Jedi_ , she figures he has the connections to make that play.)

He also has fresh contraceptive in the medpack, when she ends up bunking with him. She takes it as the tit-for-tat continues, never _quite_ evening out to leave her free to go. Days turn to weeks without him even getting lewd, to the point that she’s questioning her own read of him in that alley. Maybe he hadn’t been interested in her at all.

How is she supposed to spy on him if he’s not interested?

Why does he even keep her around, unless he’s interested in something that’ll make her disappear?

But he’s weirdly polite in the meantime, treating her as a professional _thief_ and not just a whore. That’s better than Dooku, and she does appreciate the difference.

Even so, the afternoon he pointedly checks the medpack and confirms she’s been taking contraceptive comes as a relief, of sorts. He was _waiting_.

Now to find out what he was waiting for.

She catches the package he tosses her, wordlessly saying she understands what he’s wanting, and starts undressing.

So does he.

As far as couplings go, it’s oddly…normal. A little rough, but he _loosens_ his grip upon realizing it, and he makes sure she gets off, too.

This man makes no fripping sense.

“Surprised you waited so long,” she admits, wondering _why_ the _kriff_? If that’s all he wants—

“Had to make sure you were clean.”

 _Oh._ What else had she expected? The dossier Dooku gave her had _evidence_ that Vos is a selfish bastard, not even a self-righteous one.

Fergutz, had she _hoped_?

She knows better than that.

But…as their relationship shifts, and Vos is direct and demanding in getting what he wants from her body, she can’t _stop_ that hope. It’s ridiculous and stupid and terrifying, but _pretending_ it’s real won’t hurt, right?

(She still knows better.)

And if she _enjoys_ him—well, that’s all the better for her cover, isn’t it? Lust isn’t love, but it sure makes a helpful cousin when you’re having to fake it for a Jedi who can sense emotions.

But, she notices, even when he’s as pissed as a pimp whose ladies haven’t made quota, Vos never actually _hurts_ her. He raises his voice, sure, but never his fist.

Even at his most furious, when he rants with curses in Kiffar and Huttese and languages she doesn’t recognize or understand, he never touches her in anger. He doesn’t break things. He never calls her _whore_ or _cunt_ or anything else that means ‘trash’. He only ever bitches about _actions_ —deeds done, words spoken, assumptions demonstrated.

“What were you _thinking_?!” he demands, never “Are you an idiot?!”, and he actually listens to the answer.

More often, it’s a matter-of-fact “Bad move,” and then he explains _why_. Without condescension, too, just description of the contributing factor that she overlooked.

The respect is foreign and intoxicating— _he_ is intoxicating—and she hopes this assignment lasts a good long while.

(Part of her realizes that she’s stopped _caring_ about the assignment, that she stopped being entirely forthright in her reports to Dooku even before the first time Vos took her, and she refuses to think that through. Vos treats her better than the count ever did. If it’s to be the death of her—well, at least she’s helping someone who deserves to win.)

Even at its roughest, there’s a gentleness in Vos’s touch, apology behind his firmness when he insists on something she’s unsure about. And whenever he seeks something she _really_ doesn’t like, he redirects, without her saying a word.

She’s sore from the previous night making evidence that he can’t possibly be a Jedi, watching him surreptitiously engage the scum in the cantina to get a ’read’ on a Duros’s holster (which _might_ help them find who killed a would-have-been informant), when she’s struck by the implications of his ability—an ability that answers so, so much.

Explains how he treats her, maybe, but it _really_ explains the things that he’s decided not to repeat, even though she’s fine with them.

“Oh!” escapes her, voice small.

He starts turning even before she speaks, gaze checking her and their surroundings for the threat.

She gives a slight shake of her head, to say it wasn’t an alarm.

His eyes tighten in wordless demand for clarification.

Khaleen wriggles a bit in her seat, though she knows it won’t help the discomfort. He’s _experimenting_ , discovering his own preferences even while he learns hers.

“I was your first,” she says, softly, and she trusts that he won’t kill her for noticing it.

His frown is fleeting, as is the caution that runs through his eyes. He doesn’t trust her, not really—and why should he? She was a conveniently placed pickpocket who needed some help right when he needed a thief. They’re both too acquainted with the Fringe to believe in coincidences.

They lie to each other as much as they lie for each other, and their socializing in the cantina is just a case in point. He’s a Kiffar who handles objects too readily to be able to read them, and she’s his beautiful whore. Nobody’s demanded a public demonstration or to borrow her yet, but it’s only a matter of time, and they both know how that will have to pan out without them exchanging a word.

He drapes an arm across her shoulder, and it’s warmth and support rather than the trap or cage most men she’s known would make of it.

That night, they don’t _need_ to frip—they’re back on the _Skorp-Ion_ , with no meets on the schedule that warrant the extra evidence.

Vos doesn’t ask her, either. Just watches her, silently.

She approaches, cautiously, and stops just out of reach, not wanting to pressure him if he’s only using her for his cover, not because he actually _wants_ her. She stepped into this assignment knowing full well it would cost her body, but did he? Jedi are celibate, right?

How much of a Jedi is he, really? She doesn’t know, but he’s the most considerate sentient she’s known, even if she doesn’t count him as a lover.

( _Bad word, Khaleen._ She knows better than to think of him that way. He’s a _mark_ , not a lover—and someday he’ll be done with her and toss her back in the gutter where he found her, and maybe she’ll be alive at the end. She’s not sure that ‘alive’ would be the better outcome.)

He stares into her eyes, and something soft and _grateful_ dwells there. Guilt strikes her for her own lies—she’s here for Dooku, ordered to pretend to love Vos _because_ he’ll make use of it, for his cover, so the Sith he’s hunting has been steps ahead of him all along.

She opens her mouth to…what? Apologize? Confess? Beg for forgiveness?

Khaleen never figures out what she was going to say, because then Vos is there, warm and strong and deeper than he prefers—it’s one of _her_ likes, not his—and that night’s full of hesitance and sweetness and her giving him firsthand experience as recipient rather than instigator.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe the Twi’lek’s blatant words an order in themselves, to have Khaleen deliver the disk and let Zenex kill her.
> 
> Vos wouldn’t do that. She has to believe…
> 
> Okay, so maybe he would. And maybe, if she’s part of Dooku’s trap, he _should_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter derives from Legends!canon, specifically Star Wars: Republic comic #49: _Sacrifice_. Direct dialogue may be quotes from the comic.

The pick on Zenex is clean. Khaleen’s been stealing since she could toddle, and she’s _good_ at it, but somehow the Falleen knows almost as soon as she’s grabbed the disk. Whether he’s been warned of the pending theft or is Force-sensitive or just is hypervigilant, she’s kriffed up, and she’s terrified she’s going to be killed and leave Vos alone to be eaten by the gundark pit he’s in.

She wonders if maybe this is Dooku, too, seeking to eliminate her. She’s been dancing the line of providing enough intel to stay useful while omitting or ‘mishearing’ enough to protect Vos, and she’s not fool enough to assume the Sith hasn’t noticed. With the war now started in earnest, she might very well be more useful as a corpse.

But Dooku is usually _competent_ , or at least plans thoroughly, so the fact that she’s not already dead makes her pretty sure he still finds her useful enough to leave alone…ish.

Garbage pits are horrible places to hide in, but it’s as close as she can get to Vos without risking that Zenex’s goons will find him when seeking her, and she has to trust he’ll find her. She huddles away from the way-too-large dianoga, watching it with increasing fear. Vos has come to her rescue before—not that he’s admitted the role his Force played in it, any more than she’s admitted that the men who assaulted her had been bought by Dooku. So what’s holding him up?

She’s still wondering that when the dianoga grabs her. _Vos!_

She gets her answer when she’s hoisted out of the liquid waste, and hears a female she doesn’t know ask if she’s alive.

“Yes,” she hears him answer, with the sound of dripping and someone pulling out of the water. He got her out _first_ , and she falls a little more in love with him. Not that he can ever love her back, but that warmth just makes it hurt all the more when she opens her eyes to see his boots, to hear him ask, “Did you get what you were sent after, girl?”

It’s demeaning and rude, and _obviously_ a signal to what the other female—a Rutian Twi’lek, dressed as a mechanic—needs to believe about their relationship.

Khaleen’s already been playing the lovelorn tool—she refuses to say she _is_ that, though she’s well aware the role isn’t exactly an act—so she doesn’t have to change anything from what Tookarti knows of her. Maybe she plays up her distress at failing Vos a little more than she would have, otherwise, but…

After they return to their base camp, Vos trusts the Twi’lek to fiddle with the disk, doesn’t signal anything before following her for a private conversation. He _knows_ that female, trusts her with sensitive material.

The dossier from Dooku mentioned a female Twi’lek of that coloring as Vos’s former apprentice. Probably not a coincidence.

Khaleen hesitates only a moment before discreetly inviting herself to eavesdropping range, which Vos pretends not to notice. She confirms that the Twi’lek is a Jedi with distressing promptness, just by her stupid mention of ‘the council’. _You’re supposed to be undercover! If I were reporting to Dooku…_

Tookarti is, but Vos already sent him away, with a task to keep him busy. She wonders, though she doesn’t dare hope, that it means Vos understands the intricacy of the game he’s entangled in, that he knows the role she was supposed to play.

(Or maybe she’s playing the part Dooku wanted all along. She hopes not. She’s just a gutter rat, someone to be shot and left in the ditch when the deal is done. Surely she’s worth no more than that.)

They discuss the intel revealed by the disk, Vos says that Zenex must be allowed to recover it.

“He’ll kill Khaleen!” the Twi’lek protests.

Khaleen blinks. Vos only said the disk had to be recovered, not that she’d have to give it back.

“Quin, we’re _Jedi_! We do not _sacrifice_ lives like this!”

Fergutz, the female is an _idiot_. Tookarti isn’t _that_ far away, and Chadra-Fan senses are acute.

And even if Khaleen _does_ make the delivery—which, okay, probably is the best route to return it, so maybe the Twi’lek isn’t as dumb as she seems at first blush—what makes her so sure Khaleen will end up dead? With _two_ Jedi in the game, surely they have decent odds of pulling her through alive?

Or are the Twi’lek’s blatant words an order in themselves, to have Khaleen deliver the disk and let Zenex kill her?

Khaleen swallows. Vos wouldn’t do that. She has to believe…

Okay, so maybe he would. And maybe, if she’s part of Dooku’s trap, he _should_.

Vos turns his head a little to glance back, enough to admit he knows she’s listening, maybe even has sensed her fear. “We’d sacrifice our _own_ lives.”

It’s not a request. It’s not even an order, really. But it’s acknowledgement that the task is genuinely dangerous, and a heads-up that the suggested plan is the best one he sees. If she really reads into it, she might even think he hopes that she’ll think of a better option.

It’s also blatant logic, begging the Twi’lek to _understand_.

“That’s _our_ choice! We cannot choose _for_ her—”

“What if I _volunteered_?” Khaleen cuts in, even before she processes the downwards sweep of Vos’s eyes—he’s hurt by the Twi’lek’s distrust. They’re friends, then.

The female expresses bewilderment and confusion about why Khaleen would do that, but her lekku are too still—she’s being pointed about something. Khaleen calls her out on the assumption that only Jedi can be heroes, _insists_ on volunteering…

And realizes, as she rants some kark about how she wants to help _the Republic_ , that the Twi’lek’s noticed how she feels about Vos. It’s in the female’s eyes, a pity that’s behind the frustration and upset at Vos.

Khaleen realizes the female’s concerned for _her_ , concerned that Vos is taking advantage of her. Concerned that he’s lied or something, that he’s been cruel and given her hope that maybe her feelings are requited.

Khaleen wants to smack the female, then laugh, then cry at this distrust from an _obvious_ friend of Vos’s.

Then her brain reminds her heart that the Twi’lek _is_ an obvious friend of Vos’s, from his weird warrior monk cult, so maybe the female knows something Khaleen doesn’t. Maybe Vos _is_ plotting to sacrifice her, before anyone finds out just how thoroughly he’s used her. Jedi can get in trouble for that, can’t they?

The thought has barely entered her mind when Vos has stepped up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Okay,” he says gently, accepting her offer to give Zenex back the disk. “We’ll protect you if we can. And…”

His hand’s wider than her sleeve, and the feel of his skin on hers is a comfort that makes her heart lurch. The honesty of that ’if we can’ is reassuring.

If the Twi’lek has any doubt of what Khaleen feels for Vos, her bated breath as she waits for him to finish the sentence surely confirms it.

“You really have my respect, Khaleen,” he says, as if he doesn’t show her that every time he takes her to bed, so she’ll be sleeping alone, when the Twi'lek’s around. Or maybe he regrets contemptuously calling her ‘girl’, earlier. Both?

_He doesn’t love you._

“That’s all I ask, Korto,” she answers, even though the Twi’lek had called him Quin. She doesn’t have the right to call him that.

By the time Khaleen’s meeting with Zenex, she’s had time to dwell on how much her death would protect Vos, to realize that his explicit comment about respect might’ve been a goodbye.

She’s just a gutter rat, and he’s a Jedi, and dying of old age has never been a likely outcome for her.

_Nervousness is good,_ she tells herself. _You’re_ supposed _to be nervous._ The weaker the mark thinks her, the more likely he’ll stumble into admitting more than he should.

Especially after he kills his guards with some quick blaster work, leaving her to fear what he plans for her. Falleen pheromones can do a lot.

He uses his to push her to take the blaster, to hold it to her head, to say she loves him…

_I love_ Korto _,_ she thinks, with some despair. “Why…do you want me…to _do_ this?” she manages to gasp out, and it’s as much _to_ Vos, who may be about to let her die, as it is _for_ him, so he can learn from Zenex’s answer.

The Falleen’s spiel is short before he orders her to pull the trigger—

And she _can’t_.

The pheromone-induced need is there, but the finger refuses to move.

The blaster flies from her hand, startling her and wrenching the finger.

“No,” Vos says, suddenly on the bridge behind her. “No sacrifices. Not today.”

Maybe another day, the words admit, but that’s no surprise. The mission— _his_ mission—trumps all else.

Or maybe she’ll die anyway, she thinks, as Zenex grabs her by the neck and offers Vos a choice between her or the disk.

The disk is the mission. He’ll go for the disk. She resigns herself to falling to her death. If she’s lucky, she’ll die on impact.

Vos catches her.

Vos catches _her_.

_But the disk!_ ”Korto…?”

“Easy. Steady yourself. Let me focus and draw us up…”

Hope pulses in her heart, even when her head reminds her the folly of it, but he’s holding her about her waist and refusing to let her fall.

Zenex steps on Vos’s fingers, and the crunch sounds painful, but he doesn’t let go.

The Falleen gloats.

Vos, through grit teeth, says, “If you want to see a lightsaber, I suggest you look to your right.”

There’s the snap-hiss of a lightsaber igniting. “Master Vos made the right choice,” the Twi’lek says.

Khaleen takes those words and stabs them at her foolish, silly heart. Vos saved her because he’s a Jedi, not because—

But he’s holding her close against him, clinging to the bridge by one hand with stepped-on fingers, and not giving a single signal that he’d rather be up on the bridge than down here, keeping _her_ safe, out of range of the blasterfire.

Zenex piles his pheromones on the Twi’lek, who sounds as if she’s falling under, and Vos’s hand slips a little. Fear spikes. _Guess he does like guys, after all._

“I am a Jedi,” says the Twi’lek, “and my will is my own.”

A lightsaber swings, something falls heavily, and then she’s crouching over them.

Khaleen’s lifted as much by Vos’s arm as she is by some invisible grip—the Force, she figures—and the Twi’lek (whose name Khaleen still doesn’t know and wishes she dared ask Vos about) grabs her and lifts her the rest of the way.

Vos waits for Khaleen to be secure, then leaps on the bridge, himself. He goes for the disk—pointedly, Khaleen thinks, but she’s not sure if it’s a message for her or the Twi’lek or them both. Knowing him, probably all three.

The Twi’lek comments on how Zenex won’t make his rendezvous. That’s rich, with how she’s the one who killed him.

“Depends,” Vos answers, a blatant admission that he already has a plan besh.

He has Tookarti find the details of who Zenex was meeting to deliver the disk, and he mind-tricks the contact into thinking everything went fine.

Khaleen’s resting against the wall, out of conversation distance but not entirely out of earshot, when the Twi’lek points out to Vos that the mind-trick plan wouldn’t have worked if the contact had been Falleen.

“Falleen seldom leave their planet. Reasonable odds,” Vos answers, which is just _common sense_ , and Khaleen’s again left wondering about the Twi’lek’s intelligence—and then floundering, again, as the female alerts Vos to an order their council is issuing ‘all Jedi’ and _asks_ if he’s going to heed it.

Khaleen’s even more unnerved when Vos says no, points out that he’s of better use in the shadows, and the female’s answer isn’t a protest. No, she tells him to be _careful_.

Okay, so the Twi’lek doesn’t phrase it quite like that, but it’s what she does—reminds him that the shadows can destroy who he is, that it’s better for the Jedi to lose than for even one of their number to Fall.

It’s a warning and an admonition…and it’s so incredibly _stupid_ , in light of Vos’s mission to find the second Sith (though he’s not told her that yet, and may never do so), that Khaleen remembers how kriffing _grateful_ Vos is, when she responds to what he’s actually saying, behind the words he uses.

Do other Jedi understand him at all?

The Twi’lek explicitly alerts Vos that Khaleen loves him. It would be kinda sweet—might be the first time anyone’s really cared how someone else treated her—except for how _insulting_ it is to Vos. How much it assumes he can’t tell.

He’s never promised Khaleen anything, and he’s warned her plenty. The mission comes first. Always.

His quiet “I know” makes her heart throb.

“Then tread carefully, _Quin_. For your sake, as well as hers.”

For _his_ sake? Khaleen stares in surprise for nearly a full second before she catches herself. Does that mean he cares for her beyond Jedi consideration for others?

She doesn’t dare believe so.

He’s a _mark_. If he loves her… If she’s fulfilled Dooku’s orders to get him to trust her…

He’s not the one in the wrong, here.

Vos walks away from the Twi’lek. “Come, Khaleen,” he says, and using her name is a signal that they’re back to business as usual. “We have work to do.”

Khaleen obeys and doesn’t let herself look back.


End file.
